Hands on with Abandon Mobile

Bringing a little photo-realism to the worlds of golf and poker

It wasn't all about the big mobile games publishers at E3. The smaller US-based Abandon Mobile was showing two intriguing games that have already been released over there, and they'll hopefully get an outing on this side of the pond too.

The games stood out because Abandon has gone down the road of TV-style presentation and more photo-realistic graphics, rather than the typical 3D path.

Both are the result of a tie-up with US broadcaster NBC Sports – hence the TV-style. NBC Sports National Heads-Up Poker is a poker game that focuses on the heads-up variant, where it's a head-to-head battle between you and another player as part of an elimination tournament. That said, it does feature a Texas hold'em mode too.

Heads-Up Poker seemed easy to play, but it was the graphics that stood out. The characters are big and animated, and the crowd behind looks much more like a photograph than a bunch of 3D pixels. That, together with the heads-up twist, should give it a decent shot at standing out from the crowd of poker games.

NBC Sports Real Golf takes a similar tack, being a golf game that uses photo-like backgrounds rather than 3D environments. It didn't play quite as smoothly as the likes of Tiger Woods, but the static screens as you line up your shot looked amazing.

PC owners of a certain age might remember a game called Links, which took a similarly photo-realistic path back in the 1990s (and was re-released in 2003 as a super-low budget PC game). Real Golf reminded me of that.

When might us Brits get our hands on these titles? The NBC Sports branding could present a problem, as the network isn't at all popular over here.

But there's no reason why the games couldn't be released attached to another brand, or even on their own merits. Rest assured, you'll read it here first if either ever happens.